Associated with Dionysus/Bacchus and his followers, it’s basically a staff decorated with plant matter. Seen here in different variants from Pompeii onwards.
Godward
Although unusual in paintings, tortoises can have several different readings, from love to slow and faltering political reforms.
Two birds associated with different beliefs: Hera or Juno’s peacocks, and the white dove as a physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit.
When he returned to London from Italy in 1921, he became increasingly distressed with the advent of modernism, and died the following year, a century ago today.
He died a century ago, perhaps the last painter to paint art for art’s sake, avoiding narrative or meaning. Paintings from the first half of his career.
Two specialists in the sub-genre, John Godward and John Singer Sargent, show us how to chill out in their paintings.
Among the 2022 anniversaries are the 500th of the death of Piero di Cosimo, the centenary of the death of Léon Bonnat who taught Sargent and Munch, and the birth of animal painter Rosa Bonheur.
Paintings from a century ago by Fortescue-Brickdale, Franz von Stuck, George Bellows, and John Godward, who committed suicide because of Picasso’s success.
Carpets in paintings by Gérôme, his former pupil Osman Hamdi Bey, Georges Rochegrosse, Pierre Bonnard and Paul Nash.
Three sisters in Millais’ romantic gloss on the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. One became Roussel’s lover, another Godward’s favourite nude, and the third married a musician.